Dred Scott

Dred Scott
Scott c. 1857
Born	c. 1799 Southampton County, Virginia, U.S.
Died	September 17, 1858 (aged approximately 59) St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
Resting place	Calvary Cemetery
Known for	Dred Scott v. Sandford
Spouse	Harriet Robinson ​ (m. 1836)​
Children	4[a]

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Dred Scott (c. 1799 – September 17, 1858) was an enslaved African American man who, along with his wife, Harriet, unsuccessfully sued for the freedom of themselves and their two daughters, Eliza and Lizzie, in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case of 1857, popularly known as the "Dred Scott decision". The Scotts claimed that they should be granted freedom because Dred had lived in Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory for four years, where slavery was illegal, and laws in those jurisdictions said that slave holders gave up their rights to slaves if they stayed for an extended period.

In a landmark case, the United States Supreme Court decided 7–2 against Scott, finding that neither he nor any other person of African ancestry could claim citizenship in the United States, and therefore Scott could not bring suit in federal court under diversity of citizenship rules. Scott's temporary residence in free territory outside Missouri did not bring about his emancipation, because the Missouri Compromise, which made that territory free by prohibiting slavery north of the 36°30′ parallel, was unconstitutional because it "deprives citizens of their [slave] property without due process of law".

Although Chief Justice Roger B. Taney had hoped to settle issues related to slavery and congressional authority by this decision, it aroused public outrage, deepened sectional tensions between the northern and southern states, and hastened the eventual explosion of their differences into the American Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and the post-Civil War Reconstruction Amendments—the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments—nullified the decision. The Scotts were manumitted by private arrangement in May 1857. Dred Scott died of tuberculosis a year later.
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